A Hunters Wanderings In Africa

Author : Frederick Selous
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781979049955
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (499 download)

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Download or read book A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa written by Frederick Selous and published by . This book was released on 2017-10-23 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Selous is the most famous hunter in all Africa." - THE AMERICAN "Since the days of Baldwin there has not been published a book on South African sporting which equals in value and interest the volume brought out by Mr. Selous." -ACADEMY Frederick Courteney Selous (1851 - 1917) a British explorer, officer, hunter, and conservationist, famous for his exploits in Southeast Africa. His real-life adventures inspired Sir H. Rider Haggard to create the fictional Allan Quatermain character. Selous was also a friend of Theodore Roosevelt, Cecil Rhodes and Frederick Russell Burnham. He was pre-eminent within a select group of big game hunters that included Abel Chapman and Arthur Henry Neumann. With but very few exceptions, Selous was the last of a long line of oldfashioned pioneer hunters of African big game. By long odds he was the most famous and conspicuous man of his kind. He lived and hunted from the period of the big-calibre smoothbore elephant gun that he loaded at the muzzle with a handful of powder as he ran at full speed, up through the 577 English express rifle of the 70's, to the highly finished Mannlicher of small calibre and tremendous power. In 1881 Selous published his book "A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa: Being a Narrative of Nine Years Spent Amongst the Game of the Far Interior of South Africa." His book, as a matter of course, abounds in hunting stories of the lion, elephant, rhino, ; and, as these are well told, and only just sufficiently flavoured with sporting slang to give them an air of reality or local colour, they are quite as likely to interest stay-at-home readers as sportsmen. We need hardly say that Mr. Selous was a successful sportsman, who made a good thing out of the ivory which he carried away as his spoils. The hunting of big game demands of its devotees many sacrifices. The hunter must be prepared to endure many and varied hardships in the pursuance of his vocation. Hunger, thirst, fatigue, the rigors of climate, the scorching sun by day, the fever-laden mists of night, these and many other trials must he encounter if he would taste to the full the joys of the hunter's life. Going to South Africa when he was 19, Selous travelled from the Cape of Good Hope to Matabeleland, which he reached early in 1872, and where (according to his own account) he was granted permission by Lobengula, King of the Ndebele, to shoot game anywhere in his dominions. From then until 1890, with a few brief intervals spent in England, Selous hunted and explored over the then little-known regions north of the Transvaal and south of the Congo Basin, shooting elephants and collecting specimens of all kinds for museums and private collections. His travels added greatly to the knowledge of the country now known as Zimbabwe. He made valuable ethnological investigations, and throughout his wanderings-often among people who had never previously seen a white man-he maintained cordial relations with the chiefs and tribes, winning their confidence and esteem, notably so in the case of Lobengula. In 1890, Selous entered the service of the British South Africa Company, at the request of magnate Cecil Rhodes, acting as guide to the pioneer expedition to Mashonaland. Over 400 miles of road were constructed through a country of forest, mountain and swamp, and in two and a half months Selous took the column safely to its destination. He then went east to Manica, concluding arrangements which brought the country there under British control. Coming to England in December 1892, he was awarded the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in recognition of his extensive explorations and surveys.